Moroccan Crises

This page details the two Moroccan Crises.First Moroccan Crisis - 1905/06The first crisis of Morocco happened in 1905, it was a dispute largely between Germany and France over who should control Morocco several other Great powers and nations also took an interest and sided to either Germany or France. Britain was the dominating power of empire in Africa in 1905, closely followed by France. In 1904 Britain and France signed an agreement called the Entente Cordiale in which of the many agreements was that Britain agreed not to fight with France over control of Morocco and to support it in this action. As many European countries had an Empire Morocco was one of the last places not to be taken by a Great power and still remained independent. So with both France wanting to expand its Empire and Germany wanting to start one something like this was likely to happen. Germany seeing that Britain and France had just recently signed the Entente Cordiale decided to test how strong this agreement / friendship between the two countries was and so decided to lay a claim in Morocco’s future. They disagreed with Frances claim to Morocco which was backed up by Britain, Russia, Italy and Spain. As in the course of the last 5 years France had not just signed an agreement with Britain on Morocco but with Russia, Italy and Spain. As Germany had the strongest army in the world they argued that they should be allowed empire, “Weltpolitik” which means world power, which was the desire of Germany’s ruler Kaiser Wilhelm II. In 1905 Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Tangier and rode down the streets on a white horse with a Military band with Moroccan troops, he played his part to the full and got lots of attention for his plans which were to; “support an independent Morocco open to the peaceful competition of all nations for trade”. He called for an international conference to discuss the future of Morocco. The Kaisers idea was to prevent France from occupying Morocco, which would weaken France, still allowing Germany to trade their and to test the relationship between Britain and France to see if it would still hold firm. An international conference was held at Algeciras (Spain) in 1906. Germany was weakly supported by Austria-Hungary and Morocco were as France was supported by Britain, Russia, and Spain. It was agreed that France should recognise that Morocco was still an independent country and that France and Spain were given joint control of her police force.After this was key because already there was a starting to become a division of Europe and Germany had lost against France because France now had some control over Morocco, also the Entente Cordiale was strengthened and Britain started to change its policy of splendid isolation and started to take notice of European matters. To add to this Britain and France secretly started military talks about Germany after their fears grew about her. This shows that even in 1905/06 plans were already being drawn up for war and sides were beginning to form. The Second Moroccan Crisis - 1911The second Moroccan crisis was sparked by a series of misunderstandings, countries wanting to get revenge on each other, and jumping to conclusions. In 1911 the ruling Sultan of Morocco faced a rebellion and decided to call on France for help, France sent an army to Morocco and the rebellion soon went away. However Germany’s reaction to this was to send a gunboat the Panther to the port of Agadir this was to protect the German people’s interests in Morocco. The Germans saw nothing wrong with this action as France had sent an army to look after their interests, but to other countries, especially Britain it was viewed as war like stance as well as Germanys decision to try to get a better navy then Britain and entering the naval race to build more Dreadnoughts than Britain. The British thought that Germany was going to build a naval base in the Atlantic to challenge Britain’s naval base in Gibraltar. The naval action of Germany sending the gunship the Panther led to Britain once again supporting France. This overreaction by the Germans brought Europe very close to war and all countries involved made preparations for war in 1911. The situation was resolved when Germany accepted two marshy strips of land in the Congo for recognising and accepting that France had control over Morocco. The second crisis was far more serious than the first and is key to the building up for war as it shows a clear division in Europe between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. It increased tensions rapidly and sped up a chain of events that led to the First World War. The Triple Alliance was weakened when Italy opposed what happened in Morocco; Germany now felt humiliated and decided that if another crisis arose then they would not back down. The German people were annoyed with Britain and France and now more than ever supported the idea and need for a war. Britain now became convinced that Germany was a threat and that it wanted to dominate Europe. Britain entered another secret agreement with France, this time it was a naval one, they promised to defend each other if attacked.Question for you to try- Which Morrocan crisis do you think made war more likely and why?to practice your exam technique further, check the History exams sectionResources: